


The Life I Never Had

by braidedbootstraps



Category: Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, a sprinkling if you will, also Jim being more poetic than normal, it was all a dream, just a smidge, older jim, or all a letter writing practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28634652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braidedbootstraps/pseuds/braidedbootstraps
Summary: Jim wakes from a nightmare, and in the darkness of a Caribbean hurricane decides to write a letter to the man who left him behind.
Relationships: Jim Hawkins & Captain Smollett, Jim Hawkins/John Silver, Jim Hawkins/Long John Silver (Muppets)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Life I Never Had

The hurricane woke me- or the shadow of a nightmare. I felt chased from my sleep, and was flung upright in my panic. A cold sweat clung to my brow. It’d be easier to blame the climate. Instead I found myself cursing the name of a man I no longer dared speak aloud. 

I closed my eyes, and saw the last recollection of what I’d dreamed. His eyes, dark as the seafloor, drifted from my sight and into the mist of my memories. 

We’d made port at a thrown together sort of place, barely a town, by the name of Williamsburg. It was little more than a collection of roughly boarded houses. Many of Williamsburg’s residents slept under little more than canvas and driftwood. There was no shelter from the Carribean heat. 

But there would be no complaints from any of the sailors. For the last three months we had slept beneath deck, in the dark and damp, on an ever tossing sea. A change of clothes and new supplies were welcome. As was the company we each found in our beds, where we could find them.

I was due back on board the hispaniola at dawn, and the telltale signs of amber toughed the roughened, wailing skies. A terrible storm was upon us, and between the heat, the lashing of rain against the house, and the winds I could scarce hear myself think. Very well. If I could not think, I would write, for in these last months I’d learned to read. Captain Smollett had taken the time to teach me himself. 

I looked at the sleeping figure next to me. The man with muscle bound but wired body lay in his deep sleep, from which it was often difficult to wake him. There was much he had taken the time to teach me. 

In a linen long shirt the size of a man much greater than I, I slipped from the sheets. I’d been glad of course to have a change of shirt, such a thing not being afforded to cabin boys. I’d taken what I was given quite happily. But the shirt they found, though clean and almost new, reminded me of the man I was yet to be. 

I took the Captains house robe from where it lay discarded on the floor, and pulled it around me. The heavy sleeves helped me feel a little more present in the dark room, and a little less trapped in my dreams. They also held still the folds of white linen from my oversized shirt, so I needn’t fold them up. 

Though the room was sparse, a desk had been brought from the officers study onboard, and a fine chair, and all the paperwork Smollet needed. He wouldn’t mind if I practiced on the back of a used piece of paper. 

Taking a seat, I wetted a quill. Taking a moment to collect my thoughts, I pictured my dreams as though they were grains of sand trickling from my mind and onto the page. They were like an hourglass, almost running out. I began writing to him.

_ Dear John,  _

_ Let me show you what I have dreamed between you and I. There is a city in a far away place and its name is London. I have been there only once when I first sought out a ship willing to seek Flint’s trove. The docks at London were the docks from which I first went to sea. I shall always remember and love them, as I will you. _

Here my quill hesitated, but I pressed on.

_ You’ve never told me much of your time in that place. I imagine, as with all other things, you understand London far better than I. I dream of you showing me those streets. I see you in every location of my great adventure, guiding me, teaching me. You show me the roads leading to your favourite haunts and bars, as dangerous as they might be. But I would go with you knowing this. I would go with you anywhere.  _

_ By day we scoured the city as we had done the ocean, and at last when night fell you took me home. Yes, I know, not your true home. You were always most content beneath the stars and on the water. But whichever lonely room, rented or owned, that held you when you came ashore. That place, if not home, was a secret. I never saw it, and wish I had. That is where you take me in the dark. _

_ And in that place, you’ve a simple bed, and white walls, and a window to let you see the sea and hear its sighs. The room is dark, but licked silver by moonlight. You must forgive me for imagining this part. This is where I long to see you. Not in a Captain's quarters or a grand apartment in a fair land. I instead wish you in a comfortable and quiet place, with me. With only me. _

_ We share a drink in this place and talk of old times, the adventures, the mistakes. I go to look out of that window and feel your eyes on my shoulders, as I have before. I feel you lingering at the door, to your own room no less. Quietly studying me, you’re uncertain.  _

_ And I am impatient. So I ask you in the smallest voice I know, the same voice I used the last time I saw you, to make up your mind. I turn and there you are. Wonderful and dark and eyes like shimmering coals.  _

_ You raise an eyebrow. I find myself answering the question your eyes ask. My voice is as calm as the moonlight itself. “The way I see it, you’ve two choices. One is to do what I’m sure is the right thing. To go away again. I leave me, again. The other...is to come here.”  _

_ You wait only for the passing of one breath. Then, you step silently forward, and close the door. I turn towards you, still and expectant, one hand still on the window frame. In a matter of steps you are before me, above me. By my side. And there you pause, as if clinging to the edge of a precipice.  _

_ All I can do is breathe, and allow my eyes to rove the expanse of your chest, your hair, your neck, your eyes, your shoulders. All of you. I want all of you, on me, within me, next to me. By my side, and I by yours. I have to swallow. You must know what I’m feeling. To remain composed. Really, despite the time that has passed, still the uncertain cabin boy. _

_ “Sir.” I say, nonchalantly. You crack a smile. How could I not know you were a pirate from the first moment we met? That smile alone should have warned me.  _

_ “Well?” you ask, eyes glinting “What do you want Jim?” _

_ Testing me. Do I understand what I’m asking for? Very well. I ought to know your games by now.  _

_ I lift an eyebrow in response, mirroring yours. “The next step, Sir, is you unbutton my waistcoat. And I presume you know what happens after that.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ That makes you tip your head back and laugh, that rolling thunder that used to frighten me. But a laugh is at my own lips. I’ve a voice of my own, now, and you no longer scare me. But your clever fingers are already at my chest, deftly undoing the buttons on my front. _

_ My breath catches just a little as with nothing else to say, you finish this and roughly take the waistcoat from me. As you pull it from my shoulders we’re close enough to share breath, and the bare inch between our lips takes all my conscious thought.  _

_ As my mind catches up to speed, I realise my hands are already at your breeches, tugging at the waist ties. Your cheek dips and presses against mine. Your whispered nothing words are hot against my neck. I still feel too delicate under your magnitude.  _

_ But I am not the same as I was then. As your hands move to your own clothes to finish what I started, your lips crush mine. I slip my shirt boldly from my shoulders and show the skin of my shoulders, my back, and naked chest- _

A crack of thunder, and the shanty house around me groans. I blink and am returned to where I truly am. The bed behind me creaks, and I quickly shuffle the desk papers, moving my letter to the back. 

“Jim..” I look around to see the Captain's bleary eyes watching me “what are you doing?”

“Nothing, Sir.” I turn in my seat “practicing letters”

“Good boy” After all these months, the kindness has not departed from his face, although a new tiredness lived there. I wonder if he knew I noticed these things in my Captain. “You’d better get going- dawns almost nigh”

“Yes, Captain” I slipped the letter I had written from the desk and into my lap. Smollet sighed, and the bed creaked. He had turned over, and was staring at the window, and the new day beyond.

I rose, and left his indoor coat folded over the back of his chair. The letter was a crumpled ball in the palm of my hand. “I’ll make you some coffee, Sir”

“Thank you my boy..” the Captain replied in a slurred voice, still half asleep. A fire lay ready to be struck in the centre of the hearth. I found the matches and crouching before the coals, I placed my crumpled letter in the kindling. 

The match struck and flared into life, warm and bright. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Still undecided if I should continue this one, so please do let me know what you think!


End file.
